42 U.S.C. § 1396k — Assignment, enforcement, and collection of rights of payments for medical care; establishment of procedures pursuant to State plan; amounts retained by State

(a) To help collect medical-support payments and other medical-care payments owed to people receiving medical assistance under an approved State plan, the plan must: (1) make eligibility for a person who has legal capacity to make an assignment conditional on the person doing the following: (A) assigning to the State the person’s rights, and the rights of any other person eligible for medical assistance under this subchapter for whom the person has legal authority to assign rights, to support identified by a court or administrative order as support for medical care and to payment for medical care from any third party; (B) cooperating with the State in establishing the parentage of that other person if the person is a child born out of wedlock, and in obtaining support and payments described in subparagraph (A) for the individual and that other person. The person need not cooperate if the individual is described in section 1396a(l)(1)(A) of this title or if the State agency finds good cause for refusing to cooperate under standards set by the Secretary. Those standards must consider the best interests of the people involved; and (C) cooperating with the State in identifying any third party that may be liable to pay for care and services available under the plan and giving information to help the State pursue that third party. The person need not cooperate if the State agency finds good cause under standards set by the Secretary, which must consider the best interests of the people involved; and (2) provide for cooperative arrangements, including financial arrangements, with appropriate agencies of any State. For enforcing and collecting medical-care payment rights by or through a parent, this includes an agency established or designated under section 654(3) of this title. The plan must also provide for arrangements with appropriate courts and law-enforcement officials. These arrangements must help the agency or agencies administering the plan with enforcing and collecting rights to support or payment assigned under this section and with other matters of common concern. (b) The State may keep the part of money collected under an assignment that is needed to repay the medical assistance paid for the individual connected with the assignment. The State must properly repay the Federal Government for its share of financing that assistance. The State must pay the rest of the collected money to that individual. This section does not define “good cause” or “third party.”